


Englaland

by paeanrela



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-21
Updated: 2010-06-21
Packaged: 2017-10-10 05:19:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 597
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/96006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paeanrela/pseuds/paeanrela
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A short character study on the more whimsical interpretation of England.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Englaland

He is born with the taste of magic on his tongue. It is the first awareness he has, a burst of something cool and comforting, tingling, on his palate. For a moment, a moment that is his and thus sacred, he savors it.

When he opens his eyes for the first time he sees the mists, hushed and cold, and the wingèd things fluttering soft and sweet,whispering secrets into his ear, about himself, about this place, and about the magic hanging brilliant and pervasive in the air and in him. He is happy.

He spends much of his early life alone, watching the hidden things that stir the grasses when the four Winds are sleeping, feeding the unicorn on nights when the moon is full and hangs high overhead. He wonders, with the sort of hope dreamers eat, if he shall ever be tall enough to touch it.

 

 

There are people and they are few but they are his and he loves them. It is they who give him a name, they who whisper praises, soft and wild, telling him he is theirs; their home, their hope. It warms him and he makes them stronger in return. The magic of identity and purpose paint his eyes brighter.

They are misty green, like his isle.

 

 

When he sees the red of marching armies over the lands of his home for the first time, when he meets others who would not know him but would rather make him theirs in ways that he finds abhorrent, he rejects their advances with a look of awakening power in his eyes and a sword in his hand.

He does not know where the sword came from but it is heavy in his hand, it feels good, and he wields it remarkably well for one his age. He learns what conquest is and about all the things good nations do.

 

 

At night when he sleeps his dreams are dazzling and ambitious. 

His nightmares are the same.

 

 

There is one day when he is much older. He is learning more about the world everyday, is taking more of it, and this day is slow in a way that it hasn't been in a very long time. He stares out over the sea, hears someone whispering, and tells them his name.

“I am England,” he says.  “I know you have been waiting for me, I will be there soon.” Because the whole world waits for England.

 

 

Though perhaps not anymore.

 

 

Now, he looks over London. The magic is still there, somewhere. It is in the stones, in the deeper tunnels of the Underground, where the air is warm and thick and he thinks there must still be dragons, sleeping this deep in the earth. The magic is there but harder to feel these days, when his people are many but they begin to forget what and who England is and so few even give him a second glance anymore.

Occasionally the fairies still whisper those secret things into his ear, reminding him of the mists and the cold, of battle in swirls of blue when he was still a child and called himself a different name.

He looks up at the moon, pale and difficult to see when London's lights are this bright, and wonders what mysteries are still in this world waiting to be unearthed. He wonders if it shall be he to unearth them. England wonders where he is going, and whether or not the taste of magic will be left lingering on his tongue when he dies. He hopes so.

 

 

****End***************


End file.
